Congress

The Basic Income Earth Network Congress (BIEN Congress) is held every year as a congress to share the academic, social and cultural achievements of basic income supporters around the world and to strengthen friendship. (The BIEN Congresses were held every two years until the 16th BIEN Congress in 2016, and has been held every year since 2016.) Recently held BIEN Congresses are as follows:

● The 21^st BIEN Congress in 2022 held in Brisbane, Australia (Theme: Crisis and Transformation)

● The 20^th BIEN Congress 2021 held in Glasgow, Scotland (Theme: From idea to reality)

● The 19^th BIEN Congress 2019 held in Hyderabad, India (Theme: Basic Income as Freedom and Development)

● The 18^th BIEN Congress 2018 held in Tampere, Finland (Theme: Basic Income and New Universalism: Rethinking the Welfare State in the 21st Century)

● The 17^th BIEN Congress in 2017 held in Lisbon, Portugal (Theme: Implementing a Basic Income)

● The 16^th BIEN Congress in 2016 held in Seoul, Korea (Theme: Social and Ecological Transformation and Basic Income)

● The 15^th BIEN Congress in 2014 held in Montreal, Canada (Theme: Re-Democratizing the Economy)

Invitation

Notwithstanding a persisting viewpoint that deems it utopian, for better or worse, basic income has always been proposed as a realistic idea and policy. Not only it is an unalienable right of all; it is one single promising means to address problems faced by the contemporaries, as proven by global progress experienced by basic income agenda and policy in the recent decade.

As it is arguably more challenging to break with an old notion than to welcome a new one, basic income is still either remaining as a small rift of the status quo or moving forward alongside other alleged alternatives. Basic income of nowadays, In the eyes of future historians, would appear to be struggling to proceed, albeit not without a bridgehead it managed to establish.

“Basic Income in Reality” is a warning horn to face and at the same time a clarion call to make a way through the current juncture. Discussion on basic income materialized in experiments and pilots, partial policy implementation, and other forms of political progress would pave our way to advance to the next stage of its journey.

We invite you all with shared interest and passion to Korea, a political frontier of basic income teeming with debates on its foundations, feasilbility, and transformative implication.